Memory

           

Do mental exercises really help keep the mind and brain agile and eager to learn?

Mental exercises are surely important.  Like during early brain development, it is use it or lose it. Our brains are like muscles. The more it is used, the greater the likelihood it will persist.  It also facilitates thinking, perceiving, and behaving.

Intentional learning and mental challenging on a regular basis, like physical exercise, is a wise choice as we age! Though we all reach the end of life at some point, I want to finish well with a sharp mind and good physical health. I have a suspicion that physical exercise contributes positively to neuron and synapse health!

Research show our memory is divided into 3 areas: Working Memory, long-term store-room memory (that is, memories that do not clutter up working memory but can be retrieved with relative ease) and attic memory - where decades-old memories can be called up when, say, you come across a school friend after 30 years. You have not relived those memories for so long that others standing nearby can sense your memory wheels whirring, as it were, in trying to dig up that old memory and build a link to the present.

           

           

Brain discards information that is deemed irrelevant, and that which isn't immediately relevant. You're more likely to remember something if an emotional connection is made.

I believe that our memories aren't totally stored in our physical brains. I think that as humans, we have an ability to tap into a universal knowledge; understand the same concepts, but from different perspectives. When we try to remember something, we're reaching into that universal knowledge and grasping at - what we call - memories that we consider our own.

Think of it this way - just because YOU don't experience something, doesn't mean it didn't happen. That event, whatever it is, happened and should be recorded somewhere. If so, where?

Events have been reimagined, even reenacted, by studying fragments of bullets, clothing, bone, etc. left behind. Those aren't memories, but we use them to recreate something that happened...even though we weren't there. Is our recreation accurate? How can we know? Is any of this real?